When I was writing Totally Wired, I asked the parents I interviewed about online pornography, whether they thought their teens had looked at it, and if they had spoken to them about it. I found that for mothers of boys, this was a tricky issue. One mom was very vocal in how she had a sit down with her son after seeing where he and his friend had gone in his browser history. She explained the concept of objectification to him and shared her values on the subject. Other parents seemed to shy away from this type of confrontation or conversation, either because they trusted their teens or felt like viewing pornography online is just part of boys being boys.

According to a new study, 42 percent of Internet users aged 10 to 17 surveyed said they had seen online pornography in a recent 12-month span. Of those, 66% said they did not want to view the images and had not sought them out. For any parents who have not encountered or searched for pornography online, let's just say a lot of what's online is not your father's Playboy. The reality that a high percentage of teens are either stumbling upon these images or searching for them, means parents need to proactively talk about this issue with kids and teens. Installing filtering software can help, but it's not full proof. I know it's hard enough to talk about sex and sexuality with teens, but if you don't, they'll learn about it somewhere else. And I don't think you want them learning about it from pornographers.

The challenge in having this discussion is not to make your teen feel bad or ashamed for looking at porn or even searching it out -- especially if you catch him or her in the act. Instead, view this talk as an opportunity to share your values around pornography and how consuming too much of it can be damaging to your child's perception of what constitutes normal and healthy sexuality. Here are a couple of articles that might help:

Boys and Porn: What's Normal? (Family Education Network)
So Your Kid is Looking at Porn. What next? (Safe Kids)